


The Price of Love

by NighttimeSabbatical



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Angst, F/M, bitter bitter angst, if I have to suffer then so do you, vague Berseria spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 18:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13129209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NighttimeSabbatical/pseuds/NighttimeSabbatical
Summary: It took Dezel far too long to realize that forever doesn't last.





	The Price of Love

He first knew her as the scrappy kid the Windriders picked up. With a shock of red hair and bright blue eyes, she was quick to learn and quicker to cause mischief, but most curious of all was the resonance that, for some reason for another, she suppressed. Though he'd travelled with the Windriders for decades, seeing countless members join, not one until Rose had had any resonance. Pity she made no use of it.

She grew into a young woman—the pride of the Windriders, and in turn, the pride of Dezel too. She surpassed everyone's expectations. No matter how fierce the storms she weathered, she always came out with a smile, ready for more.

After Brad's passing, who better to take the reins of the Windriders and continue his legacy?

Dezel had never loved a human; their lives were too fleeting for it to be worthwhile. Besides, they were just ... different. Always feeling, always busy. Any given human didn't know his ass from his ankles, but still carried on as if he knew everything. Dezel couldn't even begin to imagine how they managed to be so content with their carelessness.

And Rose was the most human of them all—the most humanish human Dezel had ever encountered. Wild and carefree, cheerful in her ignorance, hell-bent on getting whatever she wanted out of life: the perfect example of her species.

He didn't know the exact moment his fondness turned to love, but the first time she laid her eyes on him he just knew, and that was that. He couldn't see her eyes on him, of course, but he felt the weight of them. Clear blue. Animated yet discerning. When she looked at him that first time, there was nothing he wanted more than to know the thoughts behind those eyes.

He grew to know her, not as the woman he could watch but never touch, but as a fellow person. He tried his damnedest to hide his feelings, and for a time, he actually thought he succeeded.

After months of fighting side-by-side, of blushing and pining (only on his part, he'd thought!), of words left unspoken but still understood, Rose told him that she loved him—that she would always love him, and only him. He hadn't believed her at first, thinking it too good to possibly be true, but her lips mashed against his quickly convinced him.

She turned his world upside-down. Flowers bloomed where he thought he'd be forever barren, and he strove to be worthy of her. Marriage was a human convention, and as such wasn't a thing seraphim did, but with Rose, it just felt right. They were one, she and him.

Even though they easily surmounted most obstacles between humans and seraphim, there was one mark on the beautiful canvas of their life they couldn't ignore: Rose's mortality.

She'd grow old and frail, but he wouldn't. The years would weigh down on her, gradually chipping away at her body at her body, but to him, they wouldn't.

One day Rose would die, and Dezel wouldn't.

They'd talked it over, a few years after getting married. Dezel had thought about it long before he brought it up, but for years he couldn't even think of a way to begin the conversation. _Hey, Rose, you know I'm gonna have to watch you die one day, right?_ It was when they were engaging in a light-hearted argument when his opportunity came.

Rose suddenly laughed. "If we're already bickering like an old married couple, what'll we be like when we're actually old?"

His chest constricted. Before he could stop himself he blurted out, "Well, when you're old, anyway."

"Oh. Right." She looked down.

He sighed. "It's hard not to think about."

"Hey, cheer up," she said, wrapping an arm around his middle and leaning against him. "Maybe in a couple years we'll get slaughtered by a hellion and die together."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" he asked with a snort.

She paused, chewing on her lower lip. He wanted to kiss the crease in her brow away. "All right, here's what I think. There's no point in worrying about it—whatever happens, happens, and there's nothing we can do about it." She faced him, taking both his hands in her own, giving them a gentle squeeze. "Let's live for today and worry about tomorrow when the time comes, all right?" Then she reached up on tip-toe and pecked him on the lips, as if the matter were settled.

And it was. For fifteen years, the best fifteen years of his life, he never spared a thought for their inevitable future. But that period came to a startling halt.

He'd been dozing on the couch when Rose, in the bathroom, suddenly shrieked.

"Rose?" He sat up, yawning. "Is it a spider again?" No answer. "Seriously ..."

He hastened to the bathroom, and what he saw made his stomach clench. Rose was having some kind of fit, doubled over, hyperventilating, tears streaming down her face.

"Rose!"

She glanced up at him and shrieked again, her breaths quick and short.

With a start, Dezel realized her fit was a fit of _laughter_.

"Dezel," she wheezed. "Look." She peered at the mirror, and after a bit carefully took a single single of her hair. "I know you can't see, but can you sense something different about this particular hair?"

No matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn't tell anything different. It was the same length as all the others around it, the same thickness, the same amount of curl ...

"It's grey," she chortled.

He frowned. "What's funny about that?"

"I'm getting old," she said. "I'm already pretty old—hell, I already look older than you. If other humans could see you, they'd all think I'm a cougar."

_Ridiculous_ , he thought. She'd only been born 39 years ago, and him? Centuries ago. He'd lost count because up till now he hadn't cared.

But now, he cared very much. "Don't be crazy. I'm so much older than you, I'm basically a cradle robber."

The way her face fell, he could have punched himself. "I just thought it was funny," she said darkly. She rifled through a drawer. "I have things to do, if you don't mind."

He hesitated. If he left now, the wound would fester. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"Damn right you shouldn't have," she muttered, still not looking at him.

"How about mabo curry tonight?" _That_ had her looking at him. "My treat."

"Well, if you insist," she said, a sly smile curving her lips. Gods, but he loved her.

That night, after making love, they settled down to sleep. Or Rose did, at least—in minutes she slept peacefully beside him, snoring softly. But Dezel's mind churned.

One grey hair. How long would it take it to turn into a full head of grey hair? It wasn't her aging in and of itself that worried him, but what that aging signified.

He recalled the conversation they'd once had. Rose's voice, clear and optimistic, echoed in his mind: _Let's live for today and worry about tomorrow when the time comes, all right?_ It had seemed like good advice at the time. But now tomorrow was suddenly upon him, and he didn't know what to do.

He kept his feelings bottled up, and Rose didn't suspect a thing. She'd have called him stupid if she did, and other things besides, but this was one thing she couldn't truly understand.

By the time Rose turned fifty, her face was lined and her hair totally grey. Worry wracked Dezel, and at night his fear choked him as he tossed and turned. How long did she have—a decade or two, maybe three? Some humans died of natural causes even earlier than that.

There could only be one solution, as he saw it. In certain circumstances, humans could be turned into seraphim. He personally didn't know how, but that didn't mean no one else did.

First he scoured libraries, both those that belonged to seraphim and those belonging to humans. As a Shepherd Rose travelled all across Glenwood, and since the title of Shepherd was even more prestigious than it had been in Sorey's day, Dezel even had access to private royal libraries as well. Rose raised an eyebrow more than once upon discovering him reading, but she never said anything.

He studied every book that looked like it could possibly be relevant, but never discovered anything he didn't already know. In an old, forgotten library in Lohgrin, a leather-bound tome told that humans only turned at or near death. A tattered manuscript in Marlind said only those who were pure of heart turned into seraphim—but what good was that? There was no guarantee. No matter how widely he searched, he couldn't find out _how_ humans were turned.

Books weren't the answer, but it was possible his fellow seraphim knew what books did not, so he swallowed his pride and asked.

He asked Mikleo first, as the water seraph himself had been turned from a human by Zenrus. "I only wish I knew," Mikleo said, smiling sadly. Though he'd grown his hair out for the past thirty years, Dezel wasn't quite used to it yet. He didn't think Mikleo had cut it even once since Sorey left.

Lailah couldn't tell him any more than he already knew. He appreciated her trying to comfort him, the tenderness in her voice when she told him he shouldn't tear himself apart trying to grasp at smoke, but she could never understand how he felt. He had to do this.

Though Dezel expected Zaveid's regular detached bravado, the other wind seraph paused thoughtfully. "For Rose, huh?"

"Who else?" he muttered.

Zaveid's eyes inexplicably softened. "Sorry, Dezel, but I can't say I know. Just promise me you'll cherish the time you have left with her, all right?" Dezel left wondering if Zaveid had ever lost someone he loved.

One by one Rose's closest friends passed away, claimed by the force mortals called time. First Eguille—Rose cried into Dezel's shoulder for days after she found out. Next was Rosh, and while Rose never broke out in tears, it took weeks for her to return to her usual chatty self. She overslept, and when she was awake, she'd spend hours staring out the window with a slackened expression and drooping shoulders. That worried him more than weeping ever had. He tried to be there for her, to take her mind off of it, but it never seemed enough.

Each death was a dagger in Dezel's heart, not just for Rose's pain, but for the reminder of how fleeting human life was.

Alisha Diphda died two days after her seventy-first birthday. Rose kept herself together until just after the funeral, when she broke down sobbing. Dezel held her in a tight embrace, perhaps not quite as tight as he would have liked considering her frailty, and whispered comforting words.

Rose said against his chest, "I just keep thinking, what are you gonna do when ..." She didn't finish her thought, and Dezel was too cowardly to take up the subject himself.

Those days, he regularly awoke in the middle of the night. He perceived Rose's sleeping form beside him, but in a hazy panic from nightmares, he couldn't bring himself to reach for her, terrified she was an apparition. That if he touched her, she'd break apart and scatter like dust.

When he couldn't sleep, he paced around the house with increasing desperation. How much time did she have left? Humans rarely lived long past their 90s, and almost never past 100. Rose lived a perfectly healthy lifestyle, had no health problems, but something had to give.

Soon. He didn't know how soon, but soon.

He loved her. He cared for her, so much more than he'd ever cared for anything else. How could he have let this happen?

* * *

The sun hasn't yet reached its zenith, but the heat already has Dezel removing his shirt. Sweat sticks it to his body, which makes taking it off a pain, but he manages. Rose, from the other side of the garden, is watching him; she laughs as he struggles, and the lines around her mouth are even more stark when she grins. Dezel loves those lines—they mean she's been happy.

Dezel would never have thought her cut out for gardening—too much sitting around in the same place—but things have changed, especially over the past ten years. In her old age, gardening gives Rose something to do outside, something to do with her hands. Something they can do together.

They've lived here for the past few years, ever since Rose retired. Just a few miles from Ladylike, right beside the river, and they mostly keep to themselves, living a quiet life. For him, their life is a breath of fresh air, and for Rose ... sometimes she complains of monotony, but she seems content.

One thing that never changes is the persistence of weeds. They weed the flowerbed now, and probably wouldn’t be finished until the evening. Dezel works on one end while Rose works the other. A comfortable silence has settled between them, only occasionally broken by a complaint of the heat or a particularly deep-rooted weed.

"Ugh, seriously?" Rose mutters. Dirt smudges her wrinkled cheek, and her shoulders slope, but she's still as beautiful as ever—perhaps more so, with all the years they've been together. Time only made her more precious to him.

Rose, after laboriously getting to her feet, reaches for the spade propped up against the fence.

"You need help?" Dezel calls.

"I'm good."

Still, Dezel pays close attention to her. She slowly stomps the spade into the ground, then, grabbing the shaft with both hands, heaves—

Her eyes widen as her legs buckle beneath her. Dezel's there in an instant, shedding his physical form only to reappear by her side, catching her before she hits the ground. The spade lands on the dirt with a dull thud.

She's warm against him, but it's a warmth he doesn't mind.

"Sorry about that," she says sheepishly, and after a moment, adds, "Dezel? You gonna let me go?"

"Am I not allowed to hold my wife?" He rests his chin atop her head, holding her.

"Guess not," she says, smiling. "I'm glad you still think I'm worth holding. I don't exactly have the same body I had 50 years ago."

"True," he says. "Now, you're far more beautiful. By a long shot."

She snorts. "Bullshit. I'm all _wrinkly_. And my boobs are droopy."

"Maybe I like droopy boobs."

Suddenly she clings to him, burying her face in his chest. "Thank you," she says, her words muffled. "Thank you for everything."

"Rose ..."

"I know it's hard for you, seeing me like this. I know how much you worry about me. But you've never wavered." She pulls away, looking up at his face. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate it."

Of course she knew. How could she not have? They are one, she and him. "It's hard for both of us," he says, stroking her hair. "I know you don't like—" He swallows. "I know you don't like the thought of being left behind. But you've given up any semblance of a normal human life for me, and I thank you for that. I'm grateful you’ve put up with my grumpy ass all these years."

She hugs him even tighter. "Shut up. I'm the one who's supposed to be grateful, not you." She pauses. "But I still call bullshit on you calling me more beautiful than I was."

For an answer he hooks one arm behind her knees and, with the other supporting her back, lifts her up bridal style, cradling her against his chest. "Want me to prove it to you?" he asks in a low growl.

It is a rare occasion indeed for Dezel to make Rose blush, and this is one of such occasions. "Well, if you insist," she says, tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling his mouth to hers.

He's more terrified than ever of her death, but he's finally, finally accepted that he can't control the future. Whatever happens, happens.

It could very well be that today is all he has left. But his future self would never forgive him if he let himself have regrets.

He can say without a doubt than even one day by Rose's side is worth all the pain her death will bring. If heartbreak is the eventual price of love, well, he'll just have to accept it.

**Author's Note:**

> can you belieVE how much Dezel loves Rose
> 
> or how much Rose loves Dezel
> 
> CAN YOU


End file.
